Thursday, 5 January 2017

For my 11th Birthday, dearest Mama sent me a pair
of sarcastic socks. Inside was a Snoopy card in which she had written:

There’s no need to be
so upset. Other people have to put up with far worse.

We will see you in a
couple of months,

Your ever-absent
Mother.

p.s. Your father is
furious with you

For my 12th Birthday, I received an irate face
from Matron, interrupting my rubbery toast birthday breakfast. Your
mother phoned and is very angry. She wants to know why you haven’t sent her a
thank you letter yet. Before I’d had a chance to ask for further
clarification – thanking her for what, etc. – I was given 100 lines: I must write thank you letters to my
parents. I did write 100 lines but can’t say what the line was for fear of
offending the sensitive reader, but it might have been something along the
lines of Matron is a paedophile enabling
cunt. Fortunately, Matron did not ask for the lines as she was very
forgetful, a serendipitous side-effect of her raging and impressive alcoholism.

For my 13th Birthday, I was in hospital after a
freak accident severed two of the fingers on my right-hand. 23 stitches, two
weeks, and no visits later I was sent back to school, where I was given a
letter from my mother.

Still no thank you
letter. There’s nothing wrong with your left hand, though, is there?

For my 14th Birthday, I received a parcel wrapped
in crumpled festive paper. A message was written on it: To Evelyn, Happy Christmas! Lots of love from ..... and........... x

You don’t mind
second-hand wrapping paper, do you? said M when I saw her a couple of
months later. She then commanded me to kneel down while she asked me why I
hadn’t written a thank you letter to her brother. The next bit’s somewhat
pretentious, so if you skip ahead to my 15th Birthday I won’t be
offended. A flower blossomed behind my eyes. It was a weird little flower:
small and clear and weird. Very much like a teardrop. Teardrops weren’t
allowed, though, so it must have been a flower. See what I mean? Pretentious.

For my 15th birthday, I forget her name, but she sent
me a broken tape-recorder. In a cardboard box. The card read:

Things don’t always
have to be perfect, you know, and some of us are too busy buying houses to wrap
things up.

We will see you in two
months.

Your ever-absent
Mother.

p.s. Your father is
very upset with you

For my 16th Birthday, I received a telephone call
from my father, which I took in Fr Paedophile’s unventilated study, cosy with
the smell of old vests and stale paedophile farts. Welcome to the capitalist society, he said. I have opened a Lloyds Bank account for you. I told him to fuck
off, and left the telephone dangling.

It was unnecessarily
rude of you to be so ungrateful he said when I saw him a couple of months
later.

I don’t know where he
gets it from chipped in the other one.

It’s always the way
with adopted children, isn’t it? they said. We should have realised.